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Topic: How to answer this comment: "The item you're selling on ebay is worthless" (Read 11827 times)

I sell a lot of stuff on ebay and my philosophy is that you never know what someone will buy, and at what price. In other words, any item is worth what someone will pay. So, I list stuff that might, on first glance, strike someone as, "why would you sell THAT? It's not even worth a dime." But you know, I've sold lots of stuff that could fall into that category.

Every once in a while I get a message through ebay saying something like, "this item you're selling isn't worth anything". I pretty much ignore those comments because I have no idea how to reply. I can't understand why they are telling me this. Is it because they're mad at me for listing it? Are they trying to tell me not to waste my time (already wasted as the bulk of the work is in the listing of an item)? Are they pointing and laughing (ha ha, you'll never sell that!)?

I've considered replying with "You'd be surprised at what people will buy" or"Thanks for your comments."or"I've sold several of these at this price already" (true in one case of this happening)

I don't want to be rude but I don't get their motivation for messaging me in the first place. I figure the best thing to do is ignore (which is probably rude in and of itself) but really...

Ignore them. There are people whose lives are so pathetic that all they can do to make themselves feel better is to put other people down. The anonymity of the 'net makes it all the easier for them.

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Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bow lines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.

From a stranger or even casual acquaintance, ignore it. What kind of person wastes their time doing an eBay search for Special Widget I Consider Worthless in order to email you about them?

From someone I knew reasonably well, I might ask why they were telling me this. "You're wasting the listing fees" is different from "it's probably counterfeit, most of the XYZ Widgets out there are." Of course, from someone I knew reasonably well, I could probably tell the difference between "nobody is going to buy that, I tried selling mine last month" and "only an idiot would buy those." (There are plenty of things where I either don't understand why people want them at all, or I think they are seriously overpriced, but that means I don't spend my money on those things; I don't run around trying to convince the world that they shouldn't be spending their money on those specific doodads.)

Logged

Any advice that requires the use of a time machine may safely be ignored.

This is why I only send messages to sellers to let them know a key word to add to their search that might bring in more potential buyers (i.e. - that is not a "Barbie" doll, that is a "Princess Diana" or "Disney Sleeping Beauty" doll or something similar). As to whether or not more buyers is always a good thing - I don't know.

I have sold ONE thing on eBay and found out that they take a cut out of the shipping and the selling price - which meant that I sold at a loss and had to pay for part of the shipping out of pocket, too. I am looking at my spare laptop (two story house and one died just before vacation last year - I needed an immediate replacement, but it got delivered after we left*) and convincing myself that I'm better off keeping it around as a spare than trying to sell it and handing them $$.

If I can't sell it on Craigslist - I will probably keep it! It's listed right now and I am not even getting emails from people asking if I will ship it to their cousin in Nigeria, along with the $2K USA change from the money order they'll send me! No scammers at all!

I have sold ONE thing on eBay and found out that they take a cut out of the shipping and the selling price...

Yeah. It's crummy that they take so much but the flip side is that there is no way I could sell this stuff without them so whatcha gonna do. I offer free shipping on all of my auctions and just build the shipping cost into my opening bid price so even after ebay (and paypal) take their cut, I still make a profit. I've sold stuff on craigslist but the audience is just exponentially larger on ebay.